UN passes arms trade treaty

The UN General Assembly yesterday adopted the first-ever treaty to regulate the $80-billion-a-year conventional arms trade.
Member-states voted by 154 votes to three, with 23 abstentions, to control a trade worth $70bn (£46bn) annually.
The treaty went to a vote after Syria, Iran and North Korea blocked its adoption by consensus.
Russia, the world's second-biggest exporter, was among those who abstained from the vote in New York.
The treaty prohibits states from exporting conventional weapons in violation of arms embargoes, or weapons that would be used for acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or terrorism.
It also requires states to prevent conventional weapons reaching the black market.
The assembly had heard from member-states' ambassadors objecting to, or supporting, the draft.
Syria's Bashar Jaafari said his country did not object to regulating the international arms trade, but opposed the draft because it did not refer to the arming of "non-state terrorist groups".
Some of the countries behind the draft treaty, he said, were "fully engaged in supplying terrorist groups [in Syria] with all kinds of lethal weapons".